Category: author

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Creator Spotlight: Shannon McNeill

At Tundra Books, we want you to get to know and love our authors as much as you know and love their books. Our creator spotlight series will introduce you to the people behind some of your favorite titles . . . this week, say hello to Shannon McNeill!

About the Author:

SHANNON MCNEILL is a Canadian author-illustrator living in San Diego, California. She is a passionate advocate for children’s art education and volunteers in her community as an art teacher. She enjoys taco shops, reading aloud, weird plants, drawing in her car and spending time with her family in Southern California.

Fast Five with Shannon McNeill:

If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

I wouldn’t mind trying out one of those secret NY Public Library apartments.

What’s one thing that can instantly make your day better?

Sunshine.

Which meal is your favorite: breakfast, lunch, or dinner?

Late, long breakfast on a lazy Sunday.

What’s your “dance like nobody’s watching” song?

“Águas de Março” by Antonio Carlos Jobim & Elis Regina is a really good “sing like nobody’s listening” song. I mumble the Portuguese and it’s so beautiful I could listen to it 100 times in a row.

What do you look for in a friendship?

The ability to spend long hours browsing used books after a long lazy breakfast.

Books by Shannon:

Sparkles, No Sparkles
By Shannon McNeill
32 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735270398 | Tundra Books
A frog has no sparkle.
A poodle has no sparkle.
A pigeon has no sparkle.
Not to worry! A cape has sparkle, a crown has sparkle and boots have sparkle.
Some wily animals decide to hit the stage, leaving the actors without costumes. After the animals get their moment in the spotlight, chaos ensues . . . but luckily there are some chicks with sparkle to save the day.

Wheels, No Wheels
By Shannon McNeill
32 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735270374 | Tundra Books
A llama has no wheels.
A turtle has no wheels.
A cat has no wheels.
Not to worry! A skateboard has wheels, a tractor has wheels and a bike has wheels.
Some wily farm animals decide to go for a ride, leaving the farmer without her wheels. After the animals go and go and go and go, chaos ensues . . . but luckily there are some truck driving chicks to save the day.

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Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra is an ongoing series featuring our new releases. This title is now available in stores and online!

The Lightning Circle
Written by Vikki VanSickle
Illustrated by Laura K. Watson
224 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774882498 | Tundra Books
After having her heart broken, seventeen-year-old Nora Nichols decides to escape her hometown and take a summer job as an arts and crafts counsellor at an all-girls’ camp in the mountains of West Virginia. There, she meets girls and women from all walks of life with their own heartaches and triumphs. Immersed in this new camp experience, trying to form bonds with her fellow counselors while learning to be a trusted adviser for her campers, Nora distracts herself from her feelings, even during the intimate conversations around the nightly campfires. But when a letter from home comes bearing unexpected news, Nora finds inner strength in her devastation with the healing power of female friendship. Presented as Nora’s camp journal, including Nora’s sketches of camp life, scraps of letters, and spare poems, The Lightning Circle is an intimate coming-of-age portrait.

The Lightning Circle is also available today in audiobook!

We can’t wait to see you reading this title! If you share this book online, remember to use #ReadTundra in your hashtags so that we can re-post.

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CCBC Choices 2024

The CCBC Choices is a best-of-the-year list created annually by the librarians of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center. This year’s edition selected 238 books for children and teens published in the United States or Canada in 2023 that encompass a wide range of subjects, topics, and themes.

We would like to congratulate X. Fang and Cherie Dimaline on their CCBC Choices selection!

Dim Sum Palace
By X. Fang
48 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774881989 | Tundra Books
Liddy is so excited about going to the Dim Sum Palace tomorrow with her family that she can’t sleep. So when a delicious smell wafts into her room, she hops out of bed, opens her door and steps into . . . an actual palace of dim sum! There are dumplings, baos, buns and more delicious treats than one girl can possibly eat. Liddy just has to take a bite, but she slips and falls . . . into a bowl of dumpling filling. The chefs are so busy rolling, folding and pinching dough that they don’t notice they’ve prepared a most unusual dumpling for the Empress – a Liddy dumpling! Worst of all, she looks good enough to eat . . .

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls
By Cherie Dimaline
280 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735265639 | Tundra Books
Winifred has lived in the apartment above the cemetery office with her father, who works in the crematorium all her life, close to her mother’s grave. With her sixteenth birthday only days away, Winifred has settled into a lazy summer schedule, lugging her obese Chihuahua around the grounds in a squeaky red wagon to visit the neglected gravesides and nursing a serious crush on her best friend, Jack. Her habit of wandering the graveyard at all hours has started a rumor that Winterson Cemetery might be haunted. It’s welcome news since the crematorium is on the verge of closure and her father’s job being outsourced. Now that the ghost tours have started, Winifred just might be able to save her father’s job and the only home she’s ever known, not to mention being able to stay close to where her mother is buried. All she has to do is get help from her con-artist cousin to keep up the rouse and somehow manage to stop her father from believing his wife has returned from the grave. But when Phil, an actual ghost of a teen girl who lived and died in the ravine next to the cemetery, starts showing up, Winifred begins to question everything she believes about life, love and death. Especially love.

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Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra is an ongoing series featuring our new releases. This title is now available in stores and online!

New in Paperback:

Water, Water
Written by Cary Fagan
Illustrated by Jon McNaught
160 Pages | Ages 10+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735270053 | Tundra Books
One morning Rafe wakes up to discover his bedroom is floating in a vast sea of water. Alone with only his dog for company, Rafe adapts to this strange new world by fishing cans of food out of the water and keeping watch. Boxes float by, as does a woman, playing her cello. Then, one day, Rafe fishes out a young girl, who joins him in his room – they don’t speak the same language, but they will face this uncertain future together.

We can’t wait to see you reading this title! If you share this book online, remember to use #ReadTundra in your hashtags so that we can re-post.

Posted on

Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra is an ongoing series featuring our new releases. These titles are now available in stores and online!

Sparkles, No Sparkles
By Shannon McNeill
32 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735270398 | Tundra Books
A frog has no sparkle.
A poodle has no sparkle.
A pigeon has no sparkle.
Not to worry! A cape has sparkle, a crown has sparkle and boots have sparkle.
Some wily animals decide to hit the stage, leaving the actors without costumes. After the animals get their moment in the spotlight, chaos ensues . . . but luckily there are some chicks with sparkle to save the day.

New in Paperback:

The Further Adventures of Miss Petitfour
Written by Anne Michaels
Illustrated by Emma Block
160 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774884256 | Tundra Books
Miss Petitfour enjoys having adventures that are “just the right size” for a “single, magical day.” With her sixteen cats and the aid of a tablecloth as a makeshift balloon, Miss Petitfour soars – which is to say, she rises high in the air and flies – over her charmingly eccentric village, encountering adventures along the way. One never knows where the wind will take her in this delightfully seasonal collection of magical outings: perhaps to the aid of dearly loved friends and neighbors, including a hapless handyman and an onion-loving baby, or to a coconut-confetti parade, or in search of keys, lucky charms or even simply the perfect tablecloth for her next flight. A witty, whimsical, beautifully illustrated collection of tales that celebrate language, storytelling and all the pleasures of life, large and small!

We can’t wait to see you reading these titles! If you share these books online, remember to use #ReadTundra in your hashtags so that we can re-post.

Tundra Book Group